Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - You’re Losing Yourself Trying to Be “Nice” || Best Motivational Speeches

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

A short reflection on growth, self-worth, and the moment you stop apologizing for becoming who you’re meant to be. This piece is about shedding guilt, choosing peace, and finally standing whole in your own life. A reminder that evolution isn’t something to be sorry for...it's something to honor.More from Eddie Pinero:Monday Motivation Newsletter: https://www.eddiepinero.com/newsletterYour World Within Podcast: https://yourworldwithin.libsyn.com/Stream these tracks on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2BLf6pBInstagram - @your_world_within and @IamEddiePineroTikTok - your_world_withinFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/YourworldwithinTwitter - https://www.twitter.com/IamEddiePineroBusiness Inquiries - http://www.yourworldwithin.com/contact

I can't be sorry. See, I used to carry guilt like armor. Apologizing for the way I grew, the things I outgrew, for the people who left when I stopped dimming my light, I can't be sorry anymore. I can't be sorry for those I lost along the way. Not because I didn't care. I did.

I did. But because I finally started caring about myself. I can't be sorry for old conversations, rooms that echoed but never truly heard me. Friendships built on a version of me that's long dead. I can't be sorry for choosing peace over approval, stillness over chaos, truth, over comfort. Believe me, it's a mistake I've made. I tried to explain, to even shrink, I've twisted myself into a thousand shapes, just to make sure no one around me felt uncomfortable, to make sure the externalities were aligned.

But I've learned that the people who truly love you, well, they don't need you to vanish. to accept you. And I'm not angry. I'm not bitter. There's no resentment. I'm just not sorry. I'm not sorry for the evolution that took place.

I'm not sorry for dreaming bigger. I'm not sorry for asking more of myself and my life. And if that makes me hard to figure out or understand, And then so be it. Because I can't apologize for becoming someone I'm proud of. I can't apologize for the silence I now protect like gold. I can't apologize for walking away from anything that required me to be less than whole. See, growth is messy.

It leaves behind fragments. It burns bridges that were only ever meant to take you part of the way there. And still, I move forward. Carry no hate, but simultaneously no shame. Because I can't be sorry, not anymore. And if that makes the world uncomfortable, that's okay. Because for the first time, in a long time, I'm truly here. And for that, I can't be sorry.

What's up guys, Eddie here. And before we jump into the next chapter, just a quick note. So, as many of you know, every single video that I've ever put on this channel has been created with the intent of building momentum in your life. If you want something physical to anchor that momentum, we've created the brand AGNS, or always grateful, never satisfied for that exact reason. Athletic apparel that embodies the very ideas and concepts I talk about every day. Because you're watching on YouTube or Spotify, we've created a code for this exclusive community, YWW20. You can use that on the website, agns.lifestyle. We're right under this video on YouTube.

All this stuff is there in the shop. Again, code YWW20 gets you 20% off the entire store. It's a great way to support the channel and also elevate your journey. Let it be a reminder to keep showing up. Appreciate your time. Always grateful, never satisfied. On to the next. Excellence comes down to what you do before the applause.

What's more counterintuitive than putting something out into the world and hearing nothing? Silence, only crickets as a response, and then smiling to yourself as you depersonalize that underwhelming outcome and start planning your next masterpiece. because I'll tell you, it's a special kind of hell. Or at least it feels that way. It may actually be closer to a purgatory of sorts. A toll that must be paid. A fee that's required.

Since childhood, we're taught to see action and outcome is this immediate cause and effect relationship. I don't know about you, but very rarely did I hear. Congrats. You just watered the seed that will bear fruit in six years. No one says, be patient. Greatness must compound, and you just took a small step forward. No, it's more subtle than that. A long game.

A commitment to evolution over time. Can't be purchased. Must be earned. and the road through the dark, murky forest to validation, well, it's a demanding one. It's a treacherous pursuit, materializing over time and certainly not delivered in the mail. Oh, those moments where we'd love the applause.

Perhaps even crave it. Something, some reassurance. You're stacking Ws in your mind. Your audience is one. Your support group is the reflection in the mirror. Did you take a step forward today or not? And if you did, make sure you also take a bow, because that, my friend, is your victory. You know, people have plenty of theories for the hardest part of doing something meaningful, bringing something into existence that doesn't

already exist. And I'm sure there are thousands of different right answers, but for me, it is the loneliness. And not necessarily in the traditional, sense. Like, there were always great people around me. It's that, unless you're in it, it's hard to understand. It's hard to relate. Right? It's hard to

share with someone that you just worked a 16 hour day, and you're more broke than you were before the sun came up. You still have no idea if this is going to work. And you look out the window, the world seems to be buzzing around you.

And in your head, things seem so much simpler out there, so much easier for everyone else. That whole delayed gratification thing, you know, it seems so logical on paper. It makes so much sense in psychology books. And I'm no psychologist, but I'd guess that, you know, based on the sheer pain it creates, we aren't necessarily wired for it at such extreme levels. How far can you crawl through the desert without finding your life-saving resources without getting what you're looking for, navigating mirage after mirage after mirage.

Well, it turns out you can crawl through the desert for a very long time. To one of my favorite mantras, when you think you're done, you're actually only at 40% capacity. We can endure so much. This is when life becomes, not what is the gap between where I stand and my dream,

but as Dan Sullivan has said, where is the gain? Look how far I've already come. Look what is within my control. Today, I have the power to take one small step forward. And I can promise you that's exactly what I'm going to do, and how beautiful it is watching those little steps accumulate over time. The imaginary is made real,

Not by a snap of the fingers, but it's derived from the sound of your foot making contact with the ground over and over again. 10,000 foot view, is this hard? Yeah. Look at the distance to be traveled. But if the mindset is dialed, if the mentality is right,

if we step up and focus only on what is within our control, is it hard? No. Because anyone can take life one day at a time. This is perhaps a reminder to think less and step more. To lock into the target and go. To take your chisel to the marble and sculpt away. I'll never forget reading the book Unbroken.

When the main author, an American captured by the Japanese in World War II, indoors a hell unimaginable. Move from P.O.W. Camp to P.O.w. camp. Tortured. Taken to inches of his life. But day by day, he finds a way. And when he's finally captured and he looks back at all of it in totality, he is astounded at what he's overcome.

He says, I don't even know if I can do that again, right? Because from the outside in, it's insurmountable. It's a mountain too high to climb. But day by day, we are gods. When what's in front of you is the only monster, it can be slayed over and over and over again. We are manufacturers of the unseen, architects of value.

Which when you look at, value is directly correlated to how rare something is. greatness, excellence, success in an endeavor, they are coveted and rare, because for many, moving forward without that applause, it's too daunting a task. Performing for crickets is too taxing on the ego, an unknown with no guarantees, it induces anxiety like oxygen to a flame. So what? What's the play? What are you going to do? Can you clap loud enough for yourself to appease the whisper in your head? Can you be your own source of strength and validation? Can you show up for you?

Because here's what I say. I say when silence is loud, let your vision be louder. When people doubt you, don't take it personally. Treat it with grace. See, you're just already at a party the rest of the world hasn't arrived at yet. You're not crazy. You're just early. Okay, and maybe a little crazy, but thank God, because the innovators, the makers, the doers, the change agents and authors of reality, they're all a little crazy. But they have to be.

If one were merely pragmatic, they'd stop performing without that applause. That's the practical thing to do, after all. But you, you're not here to be pragmatic. You're here to be great. and that's a different game altogether. Of course they'll doubt you. That's the practical move. But remember this. Pragmatism is never celebrated, ever.

No, not like excellence. Not like those with the courage to march to the beat of their own drum. To point their ship straight towards horizons of their making. When you don't hear the applause, take a breath. and make your own. The goal is not to take over the world in 24 hours. It's to set goals for yourself and hit those goals. It's to perform for that audience of one.

If you can do that religiously, if you can show up for you, everything else falls into place. Everything else makes sense. So go out into the world and be crazy. Crazy enough to go where few before you have dared. Crazy enough to connect. instruct your own anxiety for the soul's sake of conquering it,

crazy enough to see castles in the air when the rest of the world sees only ghosts. Most perform for the audience, but I think it's time for you to be your own standing ovation. To watch as the roar and thunder of your own applause transcends space and time. It's not whether the crowd rises to their feet. It's whether you do now. Let's talk about escaping

life's algorithm. Because, yeah, YouTube has an algorithm. And Spotify has an algorithm, and Instagram, and TikTok, and all the social platforms we use have algorithms, but guess what? Life has an algorithm

as well. And it tends to be a lot more powerful. It's the invisible force that rewards what's safe, predictable, unexpected. It nudges you towards the path most traveled, steering you not towards what's best

for you, but towards what is most reinforced by this system in place. After all, that's what an algorithm is. And so, on social media, we'll start there. You tend to see this clearly. Originally, content is made, let's say, out of curiosity

or genuine interest, or maybe just a quick idea, spark of inspiration, whatever it is, right? And so the creator makes it, uploads it, brings it into the world. But then that piece of content garners some success. It gets a lot of views. The algorithm pushes it. The question then becomes, oh, wow, what did I do right? How do I replicate that?

How do I do more of that? Which, there's nothing wrong with asking those questions, right? That's the pragmatic thing to ask if you're trying to reach folks. But it also becomes the trap. I don't know if you guys have seen this, but I always laugh at this story. On TikTok, I saw this video where some dude, goes up to a door and hits the door with a hammer.

And I don't know what this says about humanity, but the video goes viral, gets millions of views because he hit the door with the hammer. And so you go back to the account two months later, and it's just hundreds of posts of this dude cracking doors with hammers. No substance, right? Does there need to be? That's a different conversation.

And I look at that and I laugh and I think, well, you know, not me, right? My stuff is, quote, unquote, more substantive. Well, maybe. But maybe not, because you could make the argument that in our own world, we're all hitting metaphorical doors with metaphorical hands. We're all playing a game in a system without realizing it. We're all succumbing to an algorithm, one way or another. And this is actually something that my team and I are usually trying to balance, right?

That tightrope of doing what will reach others, because if you're not playing to win, why are you playing? But simultaneously never failing to do what inspires us. Of course we want to grow and help as many people as possible. But your soul has to be lit doing it. Otherwise, why are you here? If I'm not posting what I find meaningful, there's a dissonance in my head that makes it impossible for me to function.

I have to feel aligned. I'm stubborn about that. And sometimes I wish less so, but that's just how I'm wired. You know, I talk a lot about inspiration in our lives, not being a luxury. Well, that's because it sparks everything meaningful. And when there's no inspiration, when you're only playing within that box that a platform set up for you, are you a creator?

Or are you just another useful widget on a conveyor belt? Suddenly, you're no longer chasing inspiration. You're chasing an algorithm. It becomes about playing the game, not telling the truth. It's about feeding the machine. not exploring your soul. And so we're almost four minutes in here. You're probably wondering what this or how this connects to the bigger picture.

Well, here's where it gets interesting. It's not just a social media problem. It is the problem. The world's rewards conformity. It praises stability. It collapse when you take the well-lit path, the one that's been walked a thousand times before. Because it craves that predictability.

It wants to have your story, mission, bio, down to a T so it knows where it can group you in. I mean, think about it. You're nudged toward a degree that is practical, a job that's a cure, a way of being that minimizes risk. And little by little, you trade your unique vision for the comforting metrics of social validation. You stop asking, is this the game I want to play? and you start asking, how do I win the game? I'm already in. But winning the wrong game

is just a glorified version of losing. A person can go their entire life climbing a corporate ladder only to realize it's leaning up against the wrong building. They can spend decades chasing approval only to wake up one day and realize they never truly were themselves.

And this is not me just sitting back critiquing the world or virtue signaling. I mean, I lived this, right? Which is why, one, it's so apparent to me as I'm going through it. And two, why it means so much. It's like, in my mid-20s, I looked around and I'm like, I did everything right. I did everything I was supposed to do. You know, I got good grades to go to a good school, to get a good job, to do all the things. Like, why am I miserable?

Why do I feel like I am losing? And the answer is, because I'm playing the wrong game. I was in the wrong arena, right? Me in an office sorting columns in Microsoft Excel is as backwards as Michael Phelps playing nose tackle. I sucked at it. It's just not where I was supposed to be. And this is the danger of life's algorithm.

It rewards you for compliance, not fulfillment. It encourages repetition, not growth. And if you don't take control, if you don't step back and see it for what it is, you'll mistake the road ahead for the only road. So what's the solution? Well, it's the same lesson I had to learn with content. The same lesson every creator learns

if they last long enough on that wheel. You have to disconnect from the algorithm and reconnect with you. Small things first, from a content perspective. I started implementing videos very recently on weekends that I know at least algorithmically are going to lose in the short term. But it feels different.

And it's nice to mix things up and not care about metrics or watch time. It reinforces that without some push into an unknown and challenging of a status quo, I'd stay the same. You know, these features that mean so much to me, clearly they reflect my life outlook. And if I'm just going through the motions, I'll never be at my best. The snow globe has to consistently be shaken up. And there's some selfishness here, right? Necessarily.

It's not how do I get more views. It's what do I want to say. It's not how do I get promoted. It's what type of impact do I want to have. It's not what will people think of me or how will they view me, but what makes me come alive. These are the questions that we need to be asking ourselves. In the digital realm and far beyond it, that is the shift.

That's how you escape the algorithm, not by beating it, but by stepping outside of it. I've come to realize that this above all warrants my attention, and hopefully if you reflect and find yourself in a similar pattern, you'll join me. Whether it's work, relationships, routine, art, whatever it may be. You realize that the most meaningful things in life, the creativity and love and joy and purpose, they'll never fit neatly into a formula. It would be great. It'd be a real treat if they did. It would simplify a lot. But that's not how the world works.

And so if you feel trapped, if you feel like you're playing a game that doesn't feed your soul, take a step back. Breathe. Look at the board in front of you and ask, is this truly mine? Because you don't know the algorithm, anything.

But you do owe your story. yourself, everything. Do you ever wonder how many times you gave up right before you were about to succeed? It's an impossible question because you can't possibly know the answer. There was an anecdote that was said to me once that was many of life's greatest accomplishments were achieved by people too ignorant of the odds to know. know that they were quote unquote impossible. I just love the concept.

And when you sit with it, it's a riveting thought. Like how many times did you stop just short of what maybe wouldn't have brought you to the peak of the mountain but would have created that momentum or, you know, been a slingshot for that trajectory? There's kind of a funny story with one of my good friends. he's quite a bit older than me, but back in the day in Florida, we were business partners on a few things,

still great friends with him. And, you know, there was some overlap in our circle, obviously. And, you know, down the street, there was a, like, a yoga slash interval training studio. And we went to that a few times. And he met this girl there who, you know, her and a few other people sort of became our circle. Like we'd have coffee every once in a while together, all of us.

And, you know, he was all about this girl. And I checked with him, by the way. It's okay that I'm telling this story. But, you know, he would ask her out or allude to, like, you know, grabbing a drink or dinner. And it was like, she just kind of wasn't hearing it, wasn't feeling it. Which is just, you know, that's life in the big city, right? Sometimes it, sometimes you shoot your shot and it works. Sometimes it doesn't.

And, you know, he would, he was persistent. You know, not in a bad way. I know you can easily conflate this to be something bad. It was in a charming way, right? And I remember being in the car with him, and he was talking about her, you know, asking her to go on a trip or something. something like that that he was going on. And I said, hey, dude, at what point are you going to throw the towel on this?

Like, at what point has your ego taken enough of a beating? At what point is your pride, you know, taken so much that you just walk away. And it's one of these moments I'll never forget, you know, Eddie, she only needs to say yes once. I laughed and I said, okay, dude. and a few years later they're engaged and probably the happiest couple I've ever seen. They're always together.

They're just always laughing. They're just, they have this beautiful thing. And, you know, it's the same question. Like, how many times do we stop just short? Like maybe the time he asked when her plans fell through and it was her favorite restaurant whatever it was, right?

And again, I want to be very careful with this because, like, you know, it can be conflated or blown out of proportion. He's a very respectful human being. But it's just, it is, for me, a perfect metaphor of, like, just stopping way before you've gotten what you've wanted in other areas of life. You know, it's like, I remember John Paul DeGioria

talking about, hopefully I didn't butcher's name. but way back, because one of the first speeches I ever wrote. You know, when a door closes in your face, it could be the very next door. And so you have to depersonalize failure and keep knocking. And I think I'll speak for myself, like one of the things that you're sort of sheltered from in a lot of, or I was in my old world,

where, you know, things were very structured and predictable, when you're sort of out on your own in the wilderness, building something, starting your own business, you know, knocking on doors, reaching out, creating things, seeing what works, you learn that failure is part of the process, that rejection is just, it is an important character in the story.

And if you let it define you, it will. Right? The thing about progress in a particular endeavor, is that life doesn't stop. You choose, right? So I can tell you some projects I've worked on that, man, they just, I thought they would be game-changing. I thought they would be life-altering.

I thought they would bring value to millions of people. And look, sometimes they just swing and miss. And it's very easy to look around and go, maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I'm not what I thought I was. Right? The mind will write stories for you if you let it. But it's like, no, this is just a door that was shut in your face. Go knock on the next one.

And the funny thing is, the thing that takes off or the thing that is perceived well, that does add value, oftentimes isn't even much different from the thing that was rejected. It's a slight pivot. It's a slight alteration. Right. And so I say all of this to put in your brain. that so many of the things we want in life, we stop short. And I like to think of almost.

I like to think of, you know, the best-selling book that was almost written, right? Imagine J.K. Rowling picks up the pen and goes, ah, nah, maybe later. When Michael Jordan famously, you know, cut from his varsity basketball team, people don't talk about the fact that he was a killer on the JV squad for a while, but still he looks around and he goes, and maybe basketball is not my jam. There is that version of success for you in something that you will either say yes or say no to.

You can't let outside circumstances dictate that in your world. You don't want to be a victim of almost because some of the most important, most powerful things you will ever do live on the other side of almost. They live behind mountains of almost. If you're looking around and you're going, hey, this isn't for me, this isn't what I thought, I've tried, I've dabbled. I'm not really feeling it. That's different. But the world does not get to dictate your story, you do.

And this is obviously not in the same narrative as dating. This is like life, right? It's like the world cannot tell you when to stop or what's enough. You decide that. You take in the information, in the pieces. You know, you take all these variables and you decide, right? Don't forget how much power you have there. Don't forget how fragile our egos are and how we're always tempted to stop when things become difficult.

You only need one yes in many situations. The question is not whether that yes is out there. The question is, are you willing to keep stepping towards it until it arrives? The other day, I heard someone say that they've found some of the most important things in their life in places where they weren't supposed to find them, which is interesting to me. One, because that seems to happen a lot. And two, because it's like, who creates the parameters around what we're supposed to do? Who sets the rules to begin with?

You know, I'm continuously blown away by our tendency to create imaginary walls and then live within them. To build steel bars around ourselves that separate the now from future opportunity. In one of the first videos I ever made, I talked about this. nagging feeling of discomfort that occurred right after I left the corporate world and started my own business. And at that point, to call it a business, I was giving myself a lot of credit. I was basically just starting to make videos and put them out on social media. But I would run in the middle of the day, right? That was my thing. Right through Boston, along the Charles River, I loved running. But I couldn't help feeling this guilt like I wasn't

supposed to. Like I was doing the wrong thing, doing what I was taught not to do. My whole life, I learned that you go to school or work during the day. That's the right thing. In a decade removed, I've grown and I've learned. I know how crazy it sounds now. But it took me a long time to even enjoy it and not feel like some deviant who was leaving everything he'd worked for up to that point to go and fail spectacularly. The supposed to followed me around like a shadow. Constantly trying to pull me back in. Freedom to me is separating oneself from this exact sentiment.

It's doing what's best for you, exploring your own worldview, blazing as the saying goes, your own trail, because you'll find very few supposed tos there. I think this is a microcosm of a greater truth. The most important things we do in life, our pivotal moments, our epiphanies are found where we weren't supposed to find them. Because what we're supposed to do is very rarely methodically thought out. It's simply the norm. It's marching orders.

It's what the crowd is doing. It's what will help us blend in. And it's interesting, as I've pushed further and further into life, I've come to believe that rarely is what's best all one thing or all another. It's working to find a balance that supports your ideal life trajectory. That balance will lean substantially more one way or another depending on who you are and what's important to you. And so, I'm not suggesting one always needs to be different.

Or if something is common, it's wrong. No, thousands of years of evolution and societal stressors have in many ways narrowed down for us what's effective and efficient. It's helped us survive. And to dismiss this outright is obviously counterproductive, but it does explain why any break from these norms physically hurts. We associate them with survival. And here lies the divide between surviving, which we are supposed to do,

and excelling, which is to embark upon a different game altogether. Survival is mitigating risk. Excelling is hunting down the opportunity. Survival is blending in. Excelling is asking, what about me is unique and how can I dive into that fully? Survival is not having to innovate on any large scale because the instructions are clear and laid out for you. Excelling is asking, now that I know the rules, how can I bend and maybe even break them, so that I can improve my life and the lives of those around me.

And I'll continue with the same example, because I know a lot of folks find themselves in a similar situation now. I wasn't supposed to deviate from my previous life trajectory, my education, my career track, my 401K, but I did, and I found something I otherwise would never have, an ability to work on what I enjoy and share that with others. I wasn't supposed to leave home, the Northeast. The most important people in my life live up there. But I found comfort, peace, and new beginnings down here that I never would have experienced.

I wasn't supposed to do many of the things I'm doing today. It was a genuine curiosity and a willingness to chase down what's meaningful, and the beautiful thing is, anyone can do that. Every single one of us can detach and depart from the supposed tos in our lives. And, hey, maybe some of them should be there.

Maybe some are adding value and stability that you need and maybe even cherish. But I can promise some of them aren't, and it's worth a look. It's worth thinking about those things. Where can we be a little braver, a little more courageous? Where can we venture outside the scope of what we've subconsciously deemed every day life? I love the notion that there's always more in you.

You just need to give yourself permission to pursue it. It only makes sense that no journey begins. until we give it the green light. The world is yours once you give yourself permission to pursue it. So what are you conceding? What have you accepted as fact that upon further review you might find to be fiction? There's a world of infinite opportunity waiting for you. Just past your acceptance of the way things are.

Just beyond all those supposed to. changes, but so do I. See, the goal is for us to remain inseparable. Dancing partners as life's song ebbs and flows. Co-stars in the great play of life. See, I can't be perfect, but I can be courageous. And that, as it turns out, is enough. Courage can be so small that it fits in my pocket.

Or it can be so big, so monumental, so grandiose that it takes me out my front door and drops me in a world I've never been before. Over the years, courage and I have seen everything. When I was scared to step out of one chapter and into the next, courage helped me turn the page. It said, you are bigger than what's in front of it. you. Said life is not that serious. When I looked in the mirror and didn't like who was staring back, courage helped me ask why, which unbeknownst to me would be one of the more courageous things I've ever had to do. When I was low, defeated, and overwhelmed, courage whispered in my ear that I was strong enough to get back up.

When I was tired, run down, courage explained to me, hey, it's okay to pump the brakes, to put your feet up, to escape, and let life in for a little while. And that was an interesting waltz we did there, but sometimes courage pushes and sometimes it pulls. when I was shying away from deeper relationships, vulnerability. Courage reminded me that the possibility of rejection and loss and disappointment is worth the upside. That never opening up is what we come to regret.

And, you know, sure, everything you want lives on the other side of fear. But I think love also lives on the other side of pain, and you can't have one while trying to shy away. away from the other. When I couldn't walk or run, courage stated that it was okay to crawl. As the saying goes,

on the days you only have 40%, 40% becomes 100%. 40% is courage. When my pride kicked and screamed, my ego built walls, courage reminded me to reach out, to be a fixer, that yeah, it's easy to be mad.

But being mad has never fixed a problem. When hiding behind perfection, courage reminded me an important truth. There's nothing noble about perfection. Perfection is a lie. It's fear in disguise, antithetical to courage. You can be perfect, scared, and live life as a shell of yourself, or be imperfect, flawed, but authentic and powerful. When my knees would shake and my palms would sweat,

courage said, grab the mic, step onto the stage, create the video, set up the meeting, make the call. There is a bridge to a more powerful, more evolved version of you. You just can't see it because you're currently walking it. When I become too accustomed to routine, to normalcy, to how things are, shying away from risk and opportunity and all the good stuff, courage flashes that vision in front of me of what life can be. It says, hey, that dream, that future you think of, it's not going to come to you. You have to go to it.

See, over the years, courage has changed, but so have I. And the goal has been and will always be for us to remain separable, dancing partners as life's song ebbs and flows, co-stars in the great play of life. See, I cannot be perfect, but I can be courageous. And that, as it turns out, is enough. If you believe the answer is within an arm's reach, It is. Let me explain what I mean here. This is the closest I've come to in years of getting into a kind of a back and forth on social media, on Instagram. But I thought, you know, let's not go down that road. Take a walk. Think about it.

Play pros and cons with your point of view and see if in an hour, hour and a half, you still feel the same way. and I took my walk and I came back and I can tell you that I absolutely, unequivocally, still feel the same way and I want to dive into it with you. See, anytime you talk about making the most of what you have, anytime you talk about not being a victim,

anytime you talk about always blaming yourself because no one else can fix your life, there's this sort of, of subtle, unspoken, unease. It's hard to almost articulate. You know, like, how can you tell people in adverse situations to go figure it out, right? Have faith. Go pick up the pieces along the way. You don't know what they've been through. You have no idea, right? There are some people out there in immense pain and suffering. Who are you to advocate? for internal strength in an unfair world,

which was basically the crux of that Instagram comment that prompted me to grab the mic and yap a little bit. And, you know, in its own unique way, I think it's correct. There's merit to that, right? There's a misfortune that I just can't and don't understand. Look, I grew up and live in the West. The most difficult decision I made today was do I make my own coffee or do I go to Starbucks? I'm just being real with you.

I've always had running water. I have access to food and shelter. I grew up in a middle class family in the suburbs of L.A. and then Boston. Two parents in the home. Always had lunch in my lunchbox going to school. I'm relatively healthy, right? minus the occasional injury or headache. You know, I don't know what it's like to open my eyes and hope I feel well enough to function that day.

That's suffering that I cannot relate to. But I know that regardless of one's pain, this has to be true. A choice must be made. Perhaps the most important decision one is presented with. that we are all during those times presented with. In the frame it, I'll start with a quote from Victor Frankel. He says, to draw an analogy, a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of gas.

If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus, suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore, the size of human suffering is absolutely relative. What he's saying there is that even though our suffering is not, quote, unquote, equal, and it's certainly not, in our own lives and our own world, it feels the same, right?

Which is a strange thing to even entertain, right, that my suffering or your suffering feels the same as Jeff Bezos is suffering. It's like, how? They're vastly different, different problems, different pains. So I think, you know, long story short, comparing is a fool's errand. We're not here to be judges of who's hurting more or why. No, I think the message is much simpler. When we're in those moments of pain or look, maybe it's not even moments.

Maybe it's a continuation, right? For years, someone's been fighting or weren't given a great start. They don't have financial resources, family, friends not around, sick. You name it, right? There are a million things we go through. Question is, do you point out with anger or do you point in with hope? Do you look to transfer your pain to others or use your internal strength to build what was once not there? And this is the message, by the way, that I've pondered and contemplated over and over.

and over again. It doesn't matter how I slice it and dice it. That's where I land, right? It's never beneficial to blame. Just like it's always detrimental when others clap along with you like baby seals while you're dodging accountability. It never helps for someone to say,

hey, you know, this isn't your problem. This is beyond you. You're helpless. Let's be mad together. Hey, we weren't dealt a good hand. I'm sorry. That's the way. it is. That in the short term might feel good because you don't have to fix the problem. You can

remove accountability. But in the long term, you are hurting yourself. You are disempowering yourself, disarming yourself. Removing the one thing that can change your life and that's personal agency. Again, when you're at that rock bottom, you have two options. Own it or blame, period. And you can hear that and think, what? It's not my fault he walked out of my life. Hey, I certainly didn't give myself this health problem. Hey, I didn't pick to be born or grow up in this neighborhood. True, true, true, check, check.

This is not about blame and it has nothing to do with blame. It has everything to do with ownership, with impact. empowering yourself. This is about saying, I didn't put myself here, but I sure as hell can take myself there. Not enough people are comfortable with that message. From every corner of life, you get the opposite. You have politicians saying, hey, son, the deck is stacked against you.

You're powerless. But, hey, vote for me in all help. You have, you know, the media, you have TV showing you tragedy after tragedy. pointing fingers, blaming others, right? Let's make sure people live in fear so they have no control over their own destinations. So they feel small and helpless in a world that's bigger than them. You have social media algorithms, right? Positioning victimhood as currency.

Hey, look how marginalized I am. Poor me, right, guys? Clicks, retweets, likes. That's the magic. This way of looking at the world is destroying us. It's destroying us personally. It's destroying our communities. It's destroying the fabric of society, right?

You can't have a functioning society with no personal agency or individual accountability. There's just no foundation to build on. Everything starts with the individual, everything. As the saying goes, no one is coming to save you. No one's coming to fix all your problems. Even the ones you didn't create. No one's going to fix a cycle of poverty or crime or obesity.

You have to want that. Now, is that complex? Yeah, absolutely. I'm not delusional enough to think that I can solve these things on a microphone. I'm not. But what I can tell you, is I see its complexity the same way I see a car is complex. I can't put a car together.

There's thousands of parts. But I can tell you with conviction that car is not going anywhere without the engine or motor. Just like your willingness to own the situation, your personal situation, your agency is the engine or motor in your life. You go nowhere without it. There is no vehicle without that ownership.

In other words, everything revolves around that phrase, what can I personally do about it? So when you're frustrated with the current moment or the pieces you were given, and trust me, I can empathize, man. Life is unfair. It's brutally unfair. Remember those two options.

I mean, point out, blame, and bear. beg to be saved, or you can point in and find a way to capture light in darkness. Anytime you want to transfer accountability, you are a thief robbing yourself of your own strength. Anytime someone tells you that the world is the problem and not you, they are a distraction pointing you away from the North Star you need to follow. If you believe the answer is within an arm's reach, you are correct. Because you are that answer. To life's adversity, thank you. To the challenges, the ones I hated in the moment, I am beyond grateful. They became invaluable. Those moments that forced me to be more than I was.

Step out before I was ready so that I could arm myself for the path that was meant for me. Thank you to those times I was afraid. You taught me that the darkness is never as bad as our thoughts make them out to be. And when we learn to trust ourselves, we realize that fear becomes... strength. Thank you to those times I fell short of expectations, the times I didn't quite hit the mark. You taught me that it's not about me, it's not personal, it's about taking that awareness and going at it again more intelligently. Thank you to the times I felt alone, the times I didn't get the support I hope for anticipated. You did two things. Reinforce the value of an effective, committed

team, but you also emphasize that if that candle is going to stay lit, it's going to be because I commit to keeping it lit. And when tempted to point out and blame the external world, I must pause, reassess, and focus on the world within. Thank you to those times of stagnation, the valleys of despair or of uncertainty. You reminded me that momentum has to be manufactured, and the answers we need are never big or complex. They are small and they are simple. We are always one step away from getting back on track. Thank you to the unexpected setbacks, the from out-of-now-where obstacles.

You taught me that the trials and the tribulations, they are not the exception. They are the rule. That success isn't running from them but learning to deal with them. There's a saying that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. Thanks for showing me to allocate my energy to the reaction. Thanks for the times I looked around and couldn't find. a conceivable way, the times things seemed helpless and hopeless. You taught me that even in our darkest moments there is an answer that I am capable,

I am strong enough. And who would have thought that all these things, all these situations I would have loved to run away from were a gift more valuable than any other? Who would have thought that predictability and comfort were wolves in sheep's clothing, The danger is never the obstacle. It's in thinking you've been slighted by life when the obstacle arrives. In reality, every setback is a chance to be more, to step into that future self, to live life.

It is from our struggle that we acquire our strength, from our pain we find just how far we can go. So to these challenges that made me who I am, Thank you for the insight, the lessons, and the evolution. Thank you for showing me what no success could ever have shown.